Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program

You may not know this, but hogs aren’t from around here.

Hogs are an invasive, exotic species; they’re not native to anywhere in North America.

Rob Denkhaus is Natural Resource Manager at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge. Descendants of escaped domestic hogs introduced by Spanish Explorers 300 years ago, bred with runaway Eurasian wild boars that were brought to Texas in the 1930s by ranchers for sport hunting. The by-product of this porcine partnership has resulted in a large, destructive, modern
day wild pig population.

The activities that they get involved in like rooting – where they can root several feet into the soft soils – and they’re eating invertebrates, they’re consuming the bulbs and rhizomes of plants and everything. So, they’re having a negative affect on the plant community as well as the wildlife community.

These hogs, says Denkhaus, can also prey on wildlife species.

Ground nesting birds, reptiles and amphibians, and the like. So, their impact is far-reaching…and all negative.

We’ll talk more about this plague of pigs tomorrow.

That’s our show… we had help today from Tom Harvey… the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program supports our show…and it’s funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuels.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Feral Hogs: The Problem Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

This weekend, explore bats, bugs, birds, and more during guided field trips and workshops at WildFest San Antonio.

WildFest San Antonio is going to be San Antonio’s first birding and nature festival, and we’re going to have over seventy different programs going on all weekend long at about twenty-five different locations spread out through Bexar county.

Gail Dugelby, a Nature Preserve Officer for Medina River Natural Area, says the Alamo City is an ideal location for the fest because it’s a crossroads.

Just in Bexar county alone we have 4 different eco-regions converging all on itself. So, when we say that we’re a crossroads, we get to be a crossroads of culture, as well as a crossroads of ecosystems. We’ve got this abundance of diversity.

WildFest offers participants a chance to enjoy the natural and cultural resources of the area.

Our goal is to educate the residents and the visitors about the unique natural and historical environments and increase the awareness of nature in and around San Antonio.

WildFest is May 4th through 6th throughout San Antonio. Most tours are limited to 15 to 20 people, and charge a fee. Other events are free. Visit www.wildfestsanantonio.com for complete details.

That’s our show for today…with research and writing help from Loren Seeger…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Humanities Texas is the state affiliate for of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Executive Director Michael L. Gillette.

We’re a 501(c)(3) non-profit, but every year we receive a grant from the NEH – The National Endowment for the Humanities – and we use that grant to promote the humanities in public programs throughout the state.

The organization recently awarded TPWD a $10-thousand dollar grant to support development of an online education center exploring the history of Texas in the 1930s and 1940s. Gillette says the lack of high quality, primary source material related to Texas in the 20th Century was one reason the project received funding.

So, I think that was very appealing, and the fact that it was truly a statewide project and relates to so many sites throughout the state.

The grant for this project was made possible by the Linden Heck Howell Memorial Fund.

Titled “A New Deal for Texas,” the web pages will feature lesson plans and historical essays that will help students investigate digitized historical images, artifacts and documents relating to New Deal programs in Texas.

One thing that it will achieve is enabling student to recognize the history around them.

Web pages for “A New Deal for Texas” are currently in development.

That’s our show for today… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Grant for a New Deal for Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

A 10-thousand dollar grant from the Linden Heck Howell Trust… awarded by Humanities Texas… will make it possible for Parks and Wildlife to develop a project called A New Deal for Texas that highlights the contributions of the Civilian Conservation Corps – or CCC – in our state.

Actually, this is a new kind of project for my division, because it is a curriculum, and it is aimed at seventh grade students and their teachers.

Angela Davis heads interpretive planning for Texas Parks and Wildlife. The project will exist in virtual reality and recount the era when unemployed young men working for the CCC, toiled on conservation and construction projects in State Parks.

Traditionally, my division has done exhibits that would be at a site…but we really wanted to reach out there and touch people who maybe didn’t know about some of the wonderful parks in their very own backyards.

The World Wide Web seemed a good fit.

There’s so much that we can do with the web format. We can stream video. We can stream audio. We’re going to be able to share oral histories; we’re going to be able to share period photographs of depression era workers building the parks. We’re going to be able to share Depression era architectural drawings. So, there are things that we can layer on a website that I could never present in a park – so it’s a great media for interpretation.

The web project A New Deal for Texas will be online later this year. Until then, find information about the CCC on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show for today…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

A New Deal for Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Even though you’ve heard us talk many times about park interpretation, you may still wonder what it really means.

That’s such a good question, and it’s one of the hardest ones to answer.

Angela Davis is head of interpretive planning for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

The word interpretation means a lot of things to a lot of people. But what it means to us – in the most romantic way – is that the parks are one of our most precious recourses… all the things that are in the parks: beautiful scenery, the mountains, the rivers, and of course, our historic structures. But what interpretation does is helps people relate personally to why those resources are significant. Why we – the people of Texas – have chosen to protect them.

Sometimes interpretation involves translating science and history into formats visitors can easily understand.

What we want to do is make the resources – and why they are significant – accessible. To make it fun…to make it enjoyable…to make it relevant…to every person who walks into one of our parks.

Or to everyone who logs onto the Internet…

It’s [the Internet] actually a perfect technology for interpretation.

Tomorrow: details about an online project under development that will breathe fresh life into the New Deal.

That’s our show for today…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Interpreting Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download